Diego Ortiz is generally well known to instrumentalists interested in early repertoires thanks to his Tratado de las Glosas, published in 1553, in which he puts into practice the art of “glossing” or “diminishing”, in other words of ornamenting Renaissance melodies. His famous Recercadas, which might be rendered by “researches”, constitute the emblematic form of his writing: the Spanish master explores therein the multiple possibilities offered by the rules of Renaissance counterpoint. His sacred output, gathered in the Musices Liber Primus of 1565, has on the other hand fallen into almost total oblivion (but has recently been brought back to light by Comet Musicke). This composer originally from Toledo, who emigrated to Naples — then still under Spanish rule — is nevertheless a source of great richness, bearing witness to the diversity of musical styles of his time.
This programme is thus an occasion to discover this famous technique of improvisation and musical writing, applying as much to instrumental music as to madrigals and to songs already in existence at that time. We shall rediscover some motets composed by Diego Ortiz, today too rarely performed. These works bear witness to the composer’s extreme contrapuntal mastery: they reveal his profound know-how in the art of polyphony, a synthesis of manifold influences, from the Franco-Flemish school to the pieces of the famous Iberian chansonniers. One also finds there the rhythmic inventiveness proper to diminutions, notably through theuse of instruments to double or replace sung voices, as the author himself suggests in the preface of his work.
Polyphonic songs, organ pieces performed on winds and strings, or else ornamented madrigals complete this unprecedented portrait in which virtuosity serves a writing richly… glossed!
Through an ensemble of voices and melodic instruments,we have sought to create a true musical kaleidoscope, a sonorous mirror of the multiple facets of the great Diego Ortiz.
A radio programme (in Spanish) about this programme, on Menorca’s radio:
Performers
Aude-Marie Piloz – viola da gamba
Francisco Mañalich – tenor & viola da gamba
Cyrille Métivier – cornett & vihuela de arco
Sarah Lefeuvre – soprano & recorders
Patrick Wibart – serpent / or Emmanuel Vigneron – bassoon